Day 75 – 1 Samuel 28:7-11

Scripture Review

1 Samuel 28:7-11

"Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor." (1 Samuel 28:7)

Saul steps clean over the line he once claimed to guard. He had already gotten no answer from the LORD, and instead of falling on his face in repentance, he decides to go shopping in the darkness. A preacher once said, "when Saul could discern no comfort from heaven or earth, he resolved to knock at the gates of hell. Saul does not ask for a prophet now. He does not ask for prayer. He asks for a woman "that hath a familiar spirit." Saul, who had purged the land of mediums, now wants one for himself

"And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee." (1 Samuel 28:8)

The king of Israel now dresses like a liar because he means to do liar's work. "Saul disguised himself." You can feel the shame all over the sentence. He does not march in with royal authority. He sneaks. This journey was likely ten to twelve miles by night, passing over the shoulder of the hill where the Philistines were encamped. Saul is not merely traveling at night. He belongs to the night now, morally speaking. The man who got silence from God immediately seeks a forbidden substitute. That is the old fleshly move, if the Lord will not answer on my terms, I will find another voice. The details sting. "Two men with him." A hidden errand. A reduced escort. No public inquiry. No altar. No priest. Just three figures in the dark, hunting a woman who talks to forbidden powers.

"And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?" (1 Samuel 28:9)

The woman's answer is fear talking, but it is also accidental preaching. "Thou knowest what Saul hath done." She throws Saul's own record back in his face before she even knows she is talking to Saul. That is almost comic if it were not so dreadful. The sinner who used the law against others must now hear the law repeated back to himself while he is trying to break it. The woman sees the danger clearly, "wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life?" She assumes this is a sting operation, a trap, an informant's game. She knows this can get her killed. Saul, meanwhile, is thinking only of getting an answer. A backslider often gets like that, consequence becomes somebody else's problem.

"And Saul sware to her by the LORD, saying, As the LORD liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing." (1 Samuel 28:10)

Saul swears by the LORD to protect a woman in the act of helping him break the LORD's law. That verse gives me cold chills. He drags the holy name of God into the service of occult rebellion. The God who would not answer him becomes the God whose name he now uses as collateral for his sin. One thought that comes to mind here is that "familiar spirits" are deceptive spirits and Saul's conduct here compounds the evil by sanctifying forbidden counsel with sacred words.

I have heard people in church talk like this before, just dressed up for modern use. "The Lord knows my heart" gets used to excuse what the Lord plainly condemned. "God understands" gets pinned to relationships, practices, and compromises that ought to be thrown on the altar with tears. Saul's sentence is the ancient king, sized version of that same fraud.

"Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel." (1 Samuel 28:11)

"Bring me up Samuel." Not some anonymous spirit. Not a dead soldier. Not a family member. Samuel. When the living Samuel rebuked him, Saul resisted him. When Samuel was alive, Saul feared losing face more than losing God. But now, with God silent, Saul wants the old prophet back. He wants the voice he refused. He wants counsel from the man whose counsel he would not keep. That is one of the saddest ironies I have read so far.

Saul is panicked, God is silent, and he is trying to get a message from Samuel by a route God forbids. Saul is not noble here, not tragic in the polished literary sense, not some grand misunderstood sufferer. He is a man who has spent years refusing the Word of the LORD and now wants one more word from the prophet he would not obey. There is something almost unbearable in that. He cannot bear God's silence, but he still will not take God's road back.